»Silence, you slut! You're drunk. You've gone mad! Do you think I need your filthy body? Do you think it's for such as you that I've kept myself? Sluts like you ought to be flogged!« And he lifted his hand as though to box her ears, but did not touch her.
»My God! My God!«
»And they even pity you! You ought to be extirpated, all this abomination and vice! Those who go with you, too—all that rabble! And you dare to think me anything of that sort!«
He roughly took her by the hand and flung her on the chair.
»Oh, you fine man! Fine? Fine, are you?« She laughed in a transport of delight.
»Fine? Yes. All my life! Honourable! Pure! But you? What are you, you harlot, you miserable beast?«
»A fine man!« The delight of it was intoxicating her.
»Yes, fine. After tomorrow I shall be going to my death, for mankind, for you ... and you? You'll be sleeping with my executioners. Call your officers in here! I'll fling you at their feet and tell them, 'Take your carrion!' Call them in!«
Liuba slowly rose to her feet, and when, in a tempest of emotion, with proud distended nostrils, he looked at her, he was met by a look as proud and even more disdainful. Even pity shone in the arrogant eyes of the prostitute; she had mounted miraculously a step of the invisible throne and thence, with a cold and stern attention, gazed down on something at her feet—something petty, clamorous, pitiable. She no longer smiled; there was no trace of excitement; her eyes involuntarily seemed to look for the little step on which she was standing, so conscious was she of the new height from which she looked down on all things beneath her.
»What are you?« he repeated, without moving away, as vehement as ever, but already subdued by that calm, haughty gaze.